The Bachelorette Finale starts here in 15 minutes. You can read my predictions and thoughts on the season over at PopLeft.

I've also got Weeds and Nurse Jackie set to record. I won't be checking in here until after the Bachelorette is over so I don't see a spoiler from the East Coast by mistake.

Thanks to everyone for putting up with my Monday night TV threads, this is probably the final one.

So what are you watching (or not) tonight and what did I miss by spending the day sitting in tiny visiting cubicles at the jail today? This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

. . . he's a pr*ck, says Tour de France champion Alberto Contador:

Away from the spotlight of the Tour de France and back in Spain, his home country, Alberto Contador took the chance Monday to say what he really felt about his Astana teammate Lance Armstrong. “My relationship with Lance is zero,” Contador said at a news conference, one day after winning his second Tour. “He is a great rider and has completed a great race but it is another thing on a personal level, where I have never had great admiration for him and I never will.”

Not the best translation, but more or less the gist. Here is the video.Update - Lance responds - "hey pistolero, there is no "i" in "team". what did i say in March? Lots to learn. . . . Seeing these comments from AC. If I were him I'd drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn't win." Heh. Lance has lots to learn. Pi**ing contests are not going to help him. Won't help Contador either but . . .

This is an Open Thread.

Late last month, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman asked the judge who presided over his corruption trial to grant him a new trial on the ground that evidence of prosecutorial misconduct had recently been discovered by his co-defendant, Richard Scrushy. Siegelman's motion (pdf) alleges (among other facts) that federal prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory evidence, including their extensive coaching of witnesses, and failed to correct false or misleading testimony during trial.

Justice Department paralegal Tamarah Grimes was a key source of the new information cited in Siegelman's motion. Grimes was fired after writing a lengthy letter to Attorney General Eric Holder outlining her observations of prosecutorial misconduct in Siegelman's case.

In recent days, attention has focused on allegations that the government induced the cooperation of a key witness, former Siegelman aide Nick Bailey, by making an implied threat to expose his alleged sexual relationship with Siegelman. [more ...]

Our morning thread is about to close (we close them automatically at 200 comments.) Here's another one until one of us gets done with work and has time to post. (BTD is in court and I'm dong jail visits. Maybe TChris will pop in, but he's a busy lawyer too.)

All topics welcome.

Busy day.

This is an Open Thread.

Update (TL): Same for me, I'll be at the jail visiting clients all day and then glued to the Bachelorette finale. Prediction: Jillian sends Kip home first, drama with Reid returning, Jillian gets engaged to Ed, and tomorrow night at the ATFR (After the Final Rose show they taped this past Friday) we will see they are still together, a whole two months later. Next bachelor: Get ready for Reid. Predictions only, no insider info. (And yes, I used to rush home from junior high to watch American Bandstand and see who was dancing with who. Paul and Michelle were my favorite. Old habits die hard.)

Again, open thread, all topics welcome.

The [warrantless surveillance] program was lawful . . . The reflexive judgments to the contrary seem hasty at best. There has been much controversy about the lawfulness of the program. Here I must point out that agency lawyers — career attorneys with deep expertise in the law, privacy and intelligence — assisted their professional Justice Department counterparts in their review of the program but remained comfortable throughout with the lawfulness of all aspects of the surveillance effort.- Michael Hayden

What amazes me about Michael Hayden, the former Bush Administration CIA and NSA Director, is not that he defends his and the Bush Administration actions. You would expect that. But that he does it so poorly does seem strange.

To cite the legal judgments of lawyers who approved torture - people like John Yoo, David Addington and John Rizzo, defies belief. But there you have it. I quoted from his Hayden's latest op-ed and it remains the same style of argument - trust my word. Now this argument worked to convince Joe Klein and the Media for years. A lot of us knew better. and have been proven right. But Hayden lives in a time warp, where nothing regarding the abuses of the Bush Administration lawyers has been revealed. A world where Joe Klein was proven a fool. We're past that now I hope.

Speaking for me only

I got caught up in other things tonight, and I promised those in the Palin thread I'd put up an open thread tonight, so here it is. Better late than never.

All topics (including sports for you sports fans) welcome.

I'm really surprised to hear my local news say they will bring us Sarah Palin's exit speech live. Why? Who cares? What does it have to do with Colorado?

She's leaving office with no announced plans to continue in politics. Why does this deserve live coverage?

Bye-bye Sarah. I won't be watching your speech.

As a teenager, Mohammed Jawad may or may not have thrown the hand grenade that wounded two American servicemen in Kabul in 2002. That ambiguity doesn't excuse his deplorable mistreatment. Afghan officials tortured him until he confessed, then turned him over to American military authorities who abused him at Guantanamo, where he's been detained without trial.

In May of 2004, Jawad was subjected to what is euphemistically called the "frequent flyer" program. Jawad was moved repeatedly from cell to cell such that he was allowed no real time to sleep. This went on for roughly two weeks despite the fact that, as Jawad's military commission found, such tactics were already barred at Gitmo and Jawad had little to no intelligence value.

After seven years of detention in our names, a federal judge has said "enough." In response to her ruling, the Justice Department on Friday advised the court that Jawad would no longer be treated as a military detainee. [more ...]

The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is "vastly expanding" a Bush administration initiative "to identify and deport illegal immigrants held in local jails." A pilot program in Harris County, Texas has been expanded to scores of additional counties "with an eye toward establishing it nationwide by late 2012."

One might think the program would please Rep. Lamar Smith, the super-genius who equates illegal immigrants with "terrorist weapons," but Smith fears that focusing deportation efforts on individuals who committed crimes creates "a de facto amnesty" for undocumented workers who, after entering the country, live peacefully, support their families, pay their taxes, and obey the nation's laws. This is the super-genius' preferred solution:

“We can prevent many of these crimes by deporting illegal immigrants before they have committed them, instead of waiting until after the fact,” he said, echoing the views of many hard-liners.

We could prevent a whole lot more crimes by locking up all the Republicans before they commit them. What do you think of that idea, Rep. Smith? [more...]

The Tour de France rides into Paris today. Pretty pictures. Sunday Talk shows will be all Gates I imagine. Not tempting me to start watching them again.

This is an Open Thread.

Jon Entine writes this about federal prosecutors:

We rarely think about the sheer magnitude of power in the hands of government attorneys. They have a fundamental responsibility not to win cases but to ensure justice. It is as much their duty to refrain from improper methods to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means possible to bring about a just one. But that's not always what happens. Often, government prosecutors have no intention of going to trial. They have perfected a more powerful tactic: exploiting the threat of business losses and manipulating the media to force capitulation.

[more ...]